Hello again!

Hope you're all better than ever, keep the emails etc coming my way - love to hear from you!

A LOT to update you on…..firstly for those of you who may not know, Matt decided that although he had really enjoyed Asia, the whole 'living out of a bag/being on a budget' thing just wasn't for him (I'll let him explain it further!) so he left for England from Singapore last Thursday. I decided to carry on though and am currently writing to you from the bottom bunk of my dorm room in Perth. I'll still keep blogging away so feel free to carry on keeping a check on me. Admittedly travelling alone after being with someone 24/7 is quite a shock (the girls in my dorm are all non-English speaking so we're just about getting by with some actions and pointing at things) but I'm glad that Matt and I had two months together. I met this lovely girl from Bolton on the plane - she had just left from England and had me laughing as was telling me that Jason Manford had said on 'The One Show' (I haven't heard such English words for a long time!) that by the way the press had been describing Kate Middleton as being SO middle-class, he half expected to find out that she used to work at Greggs. HA. Unfortunately Bolton girl is not my hostel so I'm just keeping myself busy with the joys of Perth for the time being. My friend Emily from uni (whom I have not had the pleasure of seeing for nearly two years!) is currently living in Fremantle so I'm off to see her tomorrow, it's supposed to be lovely there and the temperature is cooling off to a manageable 29/30 degrees - after arriving into 41 degrees on Thursday, I'm quite looking forward to that.

Anyway let me quickly update you on our time in Singapore. We had another mammoth day of travel last Saturday involving a 4am start, ten hours of flying, two planes and around 6 hours of waiting around in airports. Lovely. To top it all off although we had arrived into Singapore airport, my bag had not. I was nearly in tears to the woman at the baggage service counter telling her how much I needed my bag, they're obviously so laid back as have to deal with these things on a daily basis. Turns out that my bag hadn't been transferred onto our connecting plane at Beijing airport. (Matt thinks it could have been to do with the fact that I hadn't bothered ripping off all of my old flight tags - lesson well and truly learnt!) Thank the lord they put it on a flight to Singapore a day later and it was with me by Monday. I've never been so happy to see the old thing.

We had arrived to drizzly and humid weather but luckily we spent most of Sunday in the massive shopping centres on Orchard Street (in the aircon) so I was fine in my one and only outfit. We also went for dinner by the river and Matt found Singapore's Chelsea Supporters' Club for us to watch the game in. They are so passionate about the team, we met this one guy - Jeffery Lee (you can see him in one of the pictures of the bar) he told us that the thought of being able to go and watch a game at Stamford Bridge is like a dream to him. Matt took his address after the game and is going to send him one of his signed shirts for hanging in the bar. This seemed to cheer him up a bit after the 3-0 defeat!

Visited China Town on Monday afternoon, crazy place, as they are globally I suppose. This poor Swiss lady was being quizzed on her age by this lady stall-owner. She greeted her (in this really menacing tone) with 'Hello Grandma. How old you?" HA. She was all 'No no I'm Swiss" trying to get out of the question but stall lady just kept on going, "I know, but how old, 75, 80?". We also went inside this huge Buddhist temple where people were reciting this chant over and over, definitely felt like we shouldn't have been there.

We went to the recently built Universal Studios on Tuesday, it's been built on a very modern complex on an Island just off of Singapore - shiny and new. It made us laugh, as we were queuing up this American gentleman went up to the counter and asked if he got a discount for being American!? Err, no, no you don't. Annoyingly the main rollercoaster was unavailable but we made the most of the other rides and attractions.

We spent Wednesday doing the remaining touristy things - saw the Merlion and the Singapore Flyer followed by a quick trip to Raffles (although we couldn't get into the main lobby as there was a residents-only sign up). Finished the day with a meal looking out over Clarke's Quay, very picturesque indeed.

And now here I am in Perth, I spent the first afternoon trying to get my bearings (this was quite a chore in that heat). I've since realised that there's these brilliant free bus services which take you all over town - Red CAT, Yellow CAT or Blue CAT buses (my nearest is the Red CAT). I've been jumping on and off of those as I please! The city really is lovely, so strange to see English-looking architecture after all of this time. SO laid back here, often see people on the bus or walking around the city without any shoes on!

I got myself on a bus to Scarborough beach on Friday. The heat was unbearable but luckily it clouded over slightly in the afternoon so I managed to stay for most of the day. There were helicopters flying overhead all day and all I could think was "SHARKS" so, despite the heat, I only managed a paddle up to my knees.

I visited the Western Australia Museum yesterday, they had a very interesting/disturbing section on the Aboriginals of Australia. Did you know that Aboriginal people were only granted the right to vote in 1962!? Mental. The museum also covered the British Assimilation policy by which Aboriginal and mixed race children were forcibly removed from their Aboriginal parents and brought up by European foster parents with the hope that Aboriginals could be 'filtered out' of the population. They were allowed no contact with their Aboriginal parents and were provided no knowledge of their former existence. Awful. Stopped in Northbridge for some lunch later on then visited Perth's Art Gallery in the afternoon.

I've spent the day in King's Park today - a beautiful city park complete with botanical gardens and fantastic views. The sun came out in the afternoon and I nearly melted away but it was worth being out in the heat for.

So, as I said, I am off to see Emily tomorrow and even though it will have only been four days, I'm very much looking forward to seeing a friendly face - what a baby. Ha.

Will update again as soon as I can.

Lots of love xxxxxxxxx